Again stressing the significance of Chinese-European relations, including in the new era of the enlarged European Union, President Hu Jintao visited three new or prospective EU members in Eastern and Central Europe from June 6 to 13 to strengthen economic and cooperative links.

These contacts in both directions had to be seen as helping balance the uneven relationships which had found the incoming EU members lagging considerably behind existing members in their political and economic relations with the surging power of China.

Nevertheless the bilateral trade between both Hungary and Poland could be considered significant and had experienced a sizable increase in recent months. During the visits, the Chinese leader also signed partnership or cooperation agreements with the three countries.

Figures from the Chinese customs, published in the Peoples’ Daily, showed that the trade volume between China and the ten new EU members registered a 50.2% increase in 2003 on a year-on-year basis to $7.65 billion and the figure rose by 49% in the first four months of 2004 to $3.29 billion. Hungary, Poland and the Czech Republic were China's major trade partners among the new EU members, taking 80% of the total trade volume between China and the ten countries. The trade volume between China and Romania, which is waiting to join the European Union, grew nearly 30% in 2003 year-on-year to $1 billion.

The overall tariff of the new EU members will be reduced from 9% to 4%, and the investment environment and market demands of the new members will also be further improved. However, Chinese experts cited in the Peoples’ Daily warned that the expansion may also bring about new problems to the trade between China and the ten new EU members, including increased tariff on certain products due to the common trade policy within the European Union, and other obstacles like export quota and technical trade barriers. To minimize problems and expand trade cooperation, officials from China's Ministry of Commerce said they will take measures to enhance exchanges between the medium and small-sized enterprises of the two sides and the ministry will also ask the European Union to make certain adjustment in line with the World Trade Organisation rules.

In Poland the two countries June 8 signed a number of agreements, notably, on bilateral co-operation in economics and trade, education, culture and joint operation of a copper mine in Poland.

Trade between China and Poland hit a record of $1.98 billion in 2003, up 43.1 % from the previous year. Polish President Aleksander Kwasniewski and Hu Jintao, the first top Chinese leader to visit Poland in 55 years, held talks in Warsaw covering boosting cooperation in fields of economy, trade, culture and science. The two leaders also exchanged views on regional and global issues. In 1997, Polish President Aleksander Kwasniewski paid a state visit to China, the first official visit to China by a Polish head of state in 38 years.

China and Poland signed a joint declaration pledging the two countries to actively participate in efforts to build a relationship of all-around strategic partnership between China and the European Union

China and Poland would maintain consultation and communication on major global issues, such as the global fight against terrorism, arms control, nonproliferation, substantial development and environmental protection, the declaration said.

The two governments would encourage cooperation between their judicial and financial supervision organisations, and customs, interior and other departments in the fight against cross-border organized crime, illegal immigration and financial crimes, the declaration said. Poland reiterated its adherence to the one-China policy and voiced opposition to any effort to change Taiwan's status and strain the situation across the Taiwan Straits. Poland "supports China's peaceful reunion," the declaration said.

Both countries said it is essential to cooperate in bilateral and multilateral fields. They will encourage personnel exchanges in the hope of boosting their cooperation in the cultural, education, health, science and technology, tourism and sports sectors, the declaration said.

China and Hungary signed six cooperation documents in Budapest to strengthen their economic ties and to boost bilateral trade. Chinese President Hu Jintao, and his Hungarian counterpart Madl Frenc, witnessed the signing of the documents on education, culture, the opening of new air routes between Beijing and Budapest and on the sales of bus parts produced in Hungary. China and Hungary will jointly open a bilingual school in Budapest, teaching both Chinese and Hungarian, according to an agreement signed by ministries of education of both countries. Another agreement, signed by the China Hainan Airlines and the Hungary airlines, has set that from August 2, the China Hainan Airlines will fly three flights each week between Beijing and Budapest.

President Madl described Hu's state visit to Hungary, the first in 10 years, as an "important event" in bilateral relations.

Chinese President Hu Jintao and Romanian President Ion Iliescu agreed in Bucharest that the two countries will work together to build "full-range cooperative partnership" relations. The two presidents met for the second time in 10 months. Iliescu has visited China five times. Their formal talks lasted for more than one hour and they witnessed the signing of four bilateral documents that will expand their cooperation in culture, tourism, economic cooperation and overall relations. Hu proposed that China and Romania increase visits by leaders of government, legislature and political parties, encourage enterprises to increase investments, hold cultural festival, exhibitions and film week to celebrate the 55th anniversary of bilateral relations. In addition, he said the two countries should expand tourism cooperation as Romania has become a tourism destination of Chinese.

Sometimes relations between China and Eastern European states have gone through various cycles of fraternisation or alienation. A case in point was the experience between Beijing and Prague. On April 15 Czech President Vaclav Klaus began a week-long visit to China, the first by a Czech head of state to Beijing since the 1989 Velvet Revolution. His predecessor Vaclav Havel had pointed to the violation of human rights in China, invited the Tibetan Dalai Lama to Prague several times but had never been to China.

The trip was seen by many as a means of consolidating trade between the two countries, which had been booming in recent years. However, Klaus's visit was not without controversy, as a number of Czech organisations called for him to bring up the issue of China's human-rights record. A number of human rights groups, including Amnesty International and People in Need, wrote a joint-letter calling on him to speak up on behalf of five political prisoners who are being held there, and asking him to urge the Chinese leadership to ratify an international agreement on civic rights and political freedoms. Petr Kutilek, executive secretary of Olympic Watch, one of the organisations that signed the letter, believes that President Klaus said “We particularly believe that it's an obligation of a country such as ours, which has itself experienced communist authoritarianism, to help the people who want to bring about some change in China."

Although Klaus acknowledged that China has a problematic human-rights record, he didn’t see why it should prevent the Czech Republic from enjoying standard relations with China like other European countries. He said he believes that it is best to broach the issue of human rights within the framework of a strong bilateral relationship with the Chinese. Klaus said he was convinced that stagnation in Czech-Chinese relations from the early 1990s would be overcome. In a speech he made at the Czech embassy, Klaus said at a lunch in which deputy chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress, Li Tieying, took part that there are differences between the two countries in many respects and said that an open dialogue is of key importance for relations between the Czech Republic and China.

Klaus, his wife Livia and their accompaniment took a ride in a riksha through a traditional Chinese neighbourhood. Klaus left Beijing for the tropical island Hainan in the south of China to make a speech at an economic conference which China would like to become an Asian parallel of economic forums held in Davos, Switzerland.

He also said that he hoped to see more Chinese entrepreneurs, especially those from China's southwest province of Sichuan, participate in Czech-China trade and economic cooperation. Klaus made the remark when he addressed an exchange seminar for Czech and Sichuan entrepreneurs in Chengdu, capital of Sichuan. The Czech president was here to learn the implementation of China's strategy of extensively developing the western areas nomic cooperation between Czech and Sichuan enterprises. Klaus said he was very impressed by seeing the rapid development of Sichuan and he hoped the Czech Republic can forge cooperation with the province in fields like high technology and finance. Zhang Xuezhong, secretary of the Communist Party of China Sichuan Provincial Committee, and Zhang Zhongwei, governor of Sichuan Province, met the president.

Also in April Chinese President Hu Jintao put forward a four-point proposal to promote relations with Latvia during talks with visiting Latvian President Vaira Vike-Freiberga. The four points are to enhance political trust by promoting exchanges of visits and dialogues, to seek means to further economic and trade cooperation, to expand cooperation on transportation and tourism, and to have more cultural exchanges to push forward mutual understanding and friendship.

He also expressed gratitude for the support of Latvia on the Taiwan and Tibet issues. Vike-Freiberga said that China is Latvia's important partner in Asia. After the talks, the two sides signed six documents including an agreement on visa exemption between the Macao Special Administrative Region (SAR) and Latvia.

Dr. Vaira Vike-Freiberga, told students and faculty at Tsinghua University in a speech that a goal of her presidency is to strengthen every aspect of the relationship between Latvia and China. In addition, she said the two nations “have experienced similar turns of fate in their history, facing invasions by various powers in a series of devastating armed conflicts over the past centuries, which have given them a deeper understanding of each other and led to similar development approaches.” Reviewing the ongoing collaboration between Latvia and China, specifically several economic cooperation agreements, notably in the field of transport, that were signed during this visit to China.